Eyes Open
by HeyLadyMara
Summary: They tell her when she comes back up from the drugs. Her name is Danica Gianano, and she has been first comatose, and then in cryosleep for over two centuries.
1. Chapter 1

_Beginnings are only ends in new clothes._

Danny remembers things differently, at least in her opinion. She doesn't remember dates, or who's dating who. She has to have her friend's numbers written in her address book, not just programmed in her phone because she often loses that as well. She doesn't remember street names specifically. If you ask her the recipe for something that only she can cook, she can't give you specific measurements, because she can't remember those either. So what does she remember? She remembers textures and tastes, smells and sounds. She hears things that don't sound anymore, and she knows how to get to places by landmarks; she remembers emotions and feelings.

She remembers the taste of autumn on her tongue as she and her family pick pumpkins, the smell of the water as she goes swimming in the lake, the fear the gripped her the first time she almost lost her friend, and the mind numbing shock that _she_ had been the one to save her.

Once, when she was small, Danny had heard her parents speaking about her, once.

"_Danicka feels everything amplified."_

They didn't know quite how right they were.

* * *

It wasn't raining quite yet, but it was getting close, she remembers that, in a world where nothing is as it should be. A world of refracted light among clouds of dust and bursting stars that light a sky the color of the roses in her mother's garden. Tendrils of light wind around her, and she feels and hears things that should not be-but then hasn't she always?

_It isn't raining, but the sky is the color of iron, clouds pregnant, ready to burst._

_She and Nina are walking to Nina's car, they are laughing. Lenses-muffled sounds; she can't remember the words, but she remembers the warmth that being around her best friend gives her. _

_Fast forward_

_They're standing together amidst a group of other students, everyone hurrying to their respective buses-_

"_Ready?"_

_There's a scream-the ground trembles and cracks beneath their feet. People scream and run-Nina is gone. _

_There is no anchor_

_(Sleep now…)_

_Crying_

_Sirens_

_The pavement is warm and damp, she catches a glimpse of deep red before she can no longer look-fire is everywhere, burning my skin, and glazed brown eyes are looking back and Nina's dead God what's happened just want to sleep._

"_My god, she's still breathing!"_

_Tubes-crying (Mama? No, mama, don't cry- 'm okay)_

"_We can save her."_

"_I love you, angel."_

_And now dreams; suspended here, in her own mind. Time doesn't exist. She doesn't want it to exist. She is at peace with herself._

Pain.

Her world freezes and she is falling, she is in pain.

Her mouth opens, but her tongue is a lead weight, dirt in her throat. Her chest burns; a flame bursts and she can't breathe. Why not? For the first time in her life, she actually forces herself to breathe; her nerves are screaming at her with the rage of a thousand suns. God she just wants to sleep again, kill her please!

Finally, she screams out her pain to the world, and her hearing comes back-monitors scream with her, and people are shouting, there's the hissing of machines, and the blinding white of what can only be a hospital room.

People in white help her sit up, and something sharp pricks her neck like a stinger; the pain dulls moments later, and she begins to feel loose limbed.

"Welcome to the world," someone whispers, and she is drifting again. Not into her world, but a world of drug induced sedation.

They tell her when she wakes up again, cuffed to the hospital bed.

Her name is Danica Gianano, and she has been, first comatose, and then in cryosleep for over two hundred years.


	2. Chapter 2

**To make this work, I have to manipulate the timeline somewhat; I know that Kirk was captain of the _Enterprise_ when Marcus woke Khan, but I tweaked it a bit. Just so everyone is aware.**

It takes over a year of physical therapy and constant check-ins with a medical team before Danny is allowed to leave the hospital. She's allocated a stipend from the government, with which she uses to lease a small apartment in San Francisco.

When the earthquake happened, she'd been 18 years old; she aged in her coma until she was 23, when cryosleep developed enough to safely use on patients who could both afford it perhaps be helped when medical science advanced enough. Her brain had been healed and woken up. Later, they explain the burning, and the immeasurable pain she'd been in; her cells had actually stopped functioning while in cryosleep; in order to get them active again, they needed to suffer a shock to get them going again. The reaction is similar to a limb falling asleep, when blood flow returns again.

Because technically Danny wasn't dead, when her parents died, a portion of things had been left to her; the same with her sister, and several close friends; she had boxes of letters and videos to go through that they'd left to her. She's in the apartment only several days when someone comes to her, a representative from the government.

"Your education is obsolete; you have nothing to tether you to an occupation. What do you want to do?" The representative asks, and she asks to think about it.

Danny had been told during her therapy of the going on of the world. Aliens _did_ exist, it turned out. She was given 'sensitivity' classes, and exposed to images slowly, so that when she was allowed outside she wouldn't be overwhelmed. The alien thing was a bit of a shocker, but in all honesty, not that surprising. The idea of different species wasn't all that surprising, once announced; waking up to learn that everyone you knew was gone, everything you cared about was changed and everything you'd learned was obsolete…that took longer to work through.

She walks San Francisco and people watches; she sketches what she sees, takes pictures in her head.

Mostly, though, what she draws are images of her family-she hasn't looked to see what became of them. She doesn't want to know yet. Danny draws pictures of her sister when she was a newborn, in her nest of blankets, the fine peach fuzz of her hair beginning to grow in, one chubby fist tucked under her chin. She draws her father, dozing ("I'm resting my eyes dammit!") on the couch, head bowed, mouth slightly parted as he snores, arms crossed. Her mother, on the floor with Pickles the Saint Bernard, smiling as bright as the morning.

When the representative comes back, she says that she wants to get away. She asks if she's allowed to join the Star FleetAcademy, if there's anyway she could be sponsored. She's given a happy medium; a minor secretarial job, to see if she can handle contact with other species until a decision can be reached.

Danny takes the job, happy to have an excuse to leave the apartment other than to wander.

* * *

Admiral Marcus makes her uncomfortable, but she soon gets used to it.

She files papers, makes appointments, the usual. She soon gets used to being ignored by her co workers, and another year goes by. Things happen; with a steady, rather generous, pay check coming in, she personalizes her apartment, and begins to get a somewhat normal life. She's confident that she'll be able to get into Star Fleet Academy, and so she studies; she reads during her lunch breaks, and when she gets home, memorizing the text.

Danny works there for a year when John Harrison arrives for the research department.

The first thing that flashes across her mind about the tall man is _he is in pain._ And then _this is not a man to go up against. He is dangerous._ John's pale eyes take note of her, memorize her, and she tries not to feel uncomfortable, even though she is beginning to get used to it.

Danny's Mom said, all through the nightmare that was high school, that Danica would grow into her appearance; that her long torso and wide hips would balance out, fill out. She was right; during her comatose years, she had of course, kept aging- the awkward, half state of adolescence was gone, melted off without her knowing. The IV diet was meant to keep her alive, and it did, but some of the extra fat in her body had disappeared. She certainly wasn't a knock out- but Danny knew she was aesthetically pleasing.

"Admiral Marcus asked me to retrieve some files from you?" She offers, stepping into his assigned lab; she almost trips under the weight of his gaze.

"Which ones?"

"I don't have a high enough security clearance to know the names or what they entail. I can only conclude classified, sir." Danny replies, and Harrison snorts; turning to walk to one of the long counters.

He reminds her of the Siberian tiger she'd seen when she was a little girl; it had been in an enclosure made to be identical to it's habitat. The tiger was snow white and Indian ink, with eyes just like Harrison's- people had gasped at it's beauty as it paced the cage (because that was what the enclosure was, and he knew it), but those eyes had never strayed from Danny. She had been 4 then, but this was marked in her memories as clearly as could be; the tiger had coiled in on itself and launched at her, a loud roar shaking the plexi-glass. It had had collided, and just before collapsing to the ground and the utter chaos, there had been stillness; everyone had stared at this wild animal, inches away from the small child unable to believe that this could happen (moments later, her mother sweeps her out of the zoo, in hysterics while Danny's father has words with the manager); Danny and the tiger lock eyes and she hears the ghost of a voice whisper, partly tinged with regret and partly matter-of-fact "_I'm sorry, but it's in my nature."_ She didn't fear the death that came to her back then, and she didn't fault him for going after the easiest prey.

Harrison reminds her of that tiger; a beast with a collar in a cage, biding it's time to sink its teeth into weakness.

No one in the office talks to her, which is fine, but soon she notices that no one speaks to Harrison either, which doesn't seem to upset him.

Marcus always specifically assigns her to retrive files or messages from Harrison, and two visits later she realizes that there are cameras watching him; not just standard security cameras, but ones hidden. It puzzles her and she finds herself tapping something out in Morse code ***you are being watched***

He responds, ***I am aware***

"Would you like to go for coffee, Mr. Harrison?" She finds herself asking. "It's close to lunch, if you'd prefer that."

"I doubt that you would like to have a meal with me, Miss Gianano."

"There's a decent coffee shop down the street. It's even got a bookstore attached to it," Danny offers, somehow managing not to sound pathetic. John chuckles, but it seems sad. It reminds her even more of the tiger in the enclosure.

"A bookstore? An antique bookstore, you mean?" Danny feels her face heat. She forgets, all the time, that nearly everything is on screens now, not on paper, and people often look at her incredulously when she mentions actual _books_ and it makes her so lonely she could cry.

"I don't see why not. I'll be finished in…15 minutes. I'll meet you by the entrance. Is that adequate?" Danny smiles at him and nods. It isn't a date, not at all; she doesn't like the people here in the building, all agendas and plotting and subterfuge. She's always been straightforward and nonpolitical, and things like that make her uncomfortable. She wants someone to talk to, and Harrison seems just as disinterested in it as she is.

Exactly 15 minutes later they're walking out the building together; him without his lab coat all in black, her in a long black skirt and pale cream and black blouse.

They sit in the coffee shop and drink their liquid caffeine (he just has tea, she has plain black coffee).

"Who's watching you in your lab?"

"It's best if you don't ask such a thing. It'll get you killed." John answers, sipping his tea. He looks across the table at this human woman; she's average, not an augment, fragile and transient, but she looks a thousand years old watching him, a sadness in her almost green eyes that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of her.

"I see." And she does, he can see that. "I'm sorry. I don't speak to people, outside of work. I know this is awkward."

"Why did you ask me to coffee?" John asks her. "We'll begin with that."

"You don't look…right, caged like that."

"Caged?"

"That lab is your cage, and since I'm not permitted to know the one with the key…I thought that you might enjoy a brief period of limited freedom, if you would forgive my metaphor." John actually smiles a bit at her, and Danny smiles back at him.

"Your metaphor is remarkably accurate, given my situation. I thank you for the opportunity to breathe, if you understand."

Danny laughs. "I do," she raises her cup, "cheers."

* * *

It's like this for months; Danny and John go out to lunch, and occasionally dinner together. They grow comfortable, or, Danny does. She wants to believe that John does as well because he stops calling her Miss Gianano, and calls her Danica, like she requested. They talk of nothing in particular; they speak of books, of music ("you're a poet, Danica," and she nods). It astounds her how much they seem to know about the same things; Danny doesn't tell him about where she comes from, but she wonders if he guesses.

One morning she's called into Marcus' office, and she struggles not to panic; something about him makes her nervous.

"So you've been getting close to Harrison in R&amp;D?" He asks, after some preamble.

"We're friendly, that's all, Admiral Marcus. I know the regulations regarding workplace relationships." She assures, even though she thinks, privately, that isn't what he's driving at.

"I see, and how are you finding your adjustment? It's been some months since you came to work here, even though it's only temporary."

"I…it's much easier than I expected. I'll be honest, other species doesn't bother me; I just worry about being impolite, and I've been studying, so I don't offend anyone working here."

"Yes, I've noticed. You're very careful. And studying's good, great job. It's going to come in handy- you've been accepted into the Academy." A large smile splits her face, despite herself, and Marcus chuckles at her. "You've got your marching orders; you leave tomorrow morning."

She goes to John's apartment (he gave her his address a month previous, but she'd never made use of it) to tell her friend the news. He doesn't look very happy, but he makes an effort for her, for which she is grateful.

"Wait a moment, please," he tells her, and disappears into his room. A moment later and he's returned, and holds out a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. He holds it out to her, with the words "I meant it as a birthday, gift, but as you won't be here, it is better served to give it to you now."

It's a book; an old favorite she's been unable to locate, _White Oleander_, and it brings tears to her eyes.

"Thank you." Danny whispers, and she hugs John; he hugs her back, but they step away from one another after 10 seconds.

"Be safe, Danica Gianano."

"I can try, John."

They say good bye, and Danny goes to the Academy; packing up the things that she's been left (which she hasn't gone through), and boxing up the rest for storage (courtesy of the building's super, who rather likes her and often complains to Danny when he can corner her; she leaves him detailed instructions on which boxes go where).

In the end, she goes to Star Fleet Academy with an armful of books, a PADD, her boxes of things from her family (which she hasn't had the guts to open, still), and her textbooks. Uniforms are supplied by the Academy. She brings mainly underwear, socks, a pair of running shoes, a work out outfit, pajamas, and her information to access her accounts.

All in all, she has the least bags of anyone on the bus to the Academy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Any and all forms of Star Trek don't belong to me, just Danny.**

**The description of meditation I have in here is true; I regularly meditate, and I have experienced brief zen multiple times, and it is exactly like that. It is difficult to achieve silence and inner peace, I acknowledge this, but let me tell you, it's just like I described. My mother came to see me on one of those zen trips and was convinced I had done drugs; you don't need them. Just meditate, and the trip will come.**

**I honestly can't believe that I have to say this, but reviews are really appreciated. So far I have 1. **

**I hate to be pushy, but come on now.**

The first thing that Danny has to decide is what track of Star Fleet to pursue. There's a few things to do; the command courses are out (she doesn't trust herself with the power, her listening ability, or not to buckle under the pressure), but that still leaves navigation, engineering- plenty of things. In the end, she goes in the med track; she was always good with biology, and she enjoys helping people. Along with the core classes, she has to take several in xenolinguistics, xenobiology, a phrenology class and several others in sensitivity to other species, like a specialized soc/psych class. They give her several more tests, and find out she has a high psi score, which could be beneficial in the med unit (or harmful, depending).

Being a cadet is interesting; it's like college, which she never got to experience. She fits in better here, because some of the other cadets aren't human and aren't sure how to act, or what some of the tech they use actually _does_. She makes friendly acquaintances, most notably an Orion woman named Gaila; her skin is emerald, in contrast to her fiery red hair that cascades down her back in ringlets.

Gaila reminds her a bit of a friend back home (that's how she thinks of her old life; back home. It's much less painful, and she can pretend that she has the option of going, or calling her parents), a girl named Lynn; both are bubbly and excitable, with very little shame. She flaunts her exotic green skin and men, and women, appreciate it. _A lot_. She often tries to be Danny's wingwoman when she manages to persuade her to go out with her and her roommate on Friday nights.

Her roommate doesn't come home much, but she keeps her side clean and makes sure to do her dishes and clean up after herself, so Danny isn't concerned. Most nights she studies, but before she goes to bed, she pulls out 4 pictures; a picture of her parents and her, an image of her sister, and one of her baby brother, all hooked up to the tubes and the monitors that had made up his existence of 3 months (it was one of his better pictures, taken during the week long period where he hadn't had a ventilator shoved down his throat), and an image of her grandparents (occasionally she'll bring out the pictures of her friends or extended family). She sits them on the windowsill next to her bed and bows her head; she lights a stick of sage incense (incense was a tradition between she and Nana, but sage was the only one that didn't bother her Mom, so she does both to appease them and get their attention), and a candle. She tells them about her day, and asks them for guidance, and for forgiveness for taking so long to wake up. Danny doesn't have it in her to pray yet, but she does begin meditating again; it's hardest the first week-everything that she banishes from feeling makes it's way forward, and she has to let it out, or the exercise is useless. But when her mental discipline is up to snuff again, she hits zen and it's exhilarating; she sees the connections around her, spreading out like a pattern above her, in glowing threads. Everything is frame by frame and she understands _everything_. She later asks herself why anyone would need drugs when they could meditate- but figures that it's hard for anyone to face themselves and come to know their own mind.

Other things happen; John doesn't call her. After a month goes by, she calls his number, and gets an automated voice saying that the number is disconnected. It worries her, but she knows that it's out of her hands. Danny adds him to her queue of people that she misses.

Halfway through the second semester, she's fitted into interspecies ethics. She notices almost immediately that she's one of the few who seems to take this seriously right off the bat. She sits down next to Gaila's roommate, who is gracious enough to reintroduce herself as Uhura. Danny reminds her of her name as well, and the two make small talk, until the instructor comes in, and everyone falls silent, gawking at him.

Danny doesn't really get it until she puts on her glasses, and then it clicks; he's a Vulcan.

That alone really isn't enough to make everyone stare, or it shouldn't be, in her opinion. What makes them gawk like morons is his eyes, which takes her a second longer to spot; his eyes are human. _Well,_ she thinks, clicking her pen and hitting the record button on her tape recorder (a trick that her mother and father both employed when they were in school)_, that's interesting._

"I am Spock. Some of you I am acquainted with in Advanced Phrenology, but for those of you who are not in that particular class, don't bother." There's a bit of murmuring at that, but he doesn't react. "I am not an instructor who can be talked into giving a better grade; what you receive is directly parallel to the work you put into the class." Danny decides that she likes him already.

He begins the lecture by asking an obvious question, "for what reason is it useful to know a species' ethics and customs when dealing with them? Can anyone tell me?"

Next to her, Uhura's hand goes up immediately. There are no others. Hesitantly, Danny raises hers as well, if only because she thinks it's easy. She's relatively convinced that he won't call on her.

Of course, Danny is incorrect.

"Miss Gianano. Your thoughts?"

"Oh," she flounders, before finding her voice, "ethics are important because respect is important, and different species have different thoughts on respect. For the Federation, this is especially important, so that there are no misunderstandings that could lead to war, God forbid. It's especially important for representatives of Star Fleet because they represent the Federation."

"Well said. Uhura?"

"My answer is much the same." Uhura admits, and the lecture goes on.

Its perfunctory stuff today, mainly what the class will entail, with a subtext that Danny and Uhura both picked up on that said, quite plainly, _if you aren't here to learn then don't come back._ Danny and Uhura take notes anyhow, just because you never know-instructors at the academy sometimes ask questions on rules and things said on the first day, just to see if you paid attention.

* * *

One day in xenobio III, the guy next to her strikes up a conversation with her and she feels the utter loneliness replaced with joy.

He's from Georgia.

His name is Leonard McCoy, and his voice washes over Danny like a warm summer wind. Danny's Mother is from Georgia, but she spent the majority of her life in Alabama; the bottom line being that Danny spent most of her summers in both states with various relatives. She misses them on the whole; she didn't know them well, but they were good people, almost stereotypically so.

He's a hypochondriac with a habit of explaining why space is the worst place to work and a penchant for metaphors. He tells her about boiling to death in space, their lungs collapsing in less than two seconds; dying alone in darkness without the ability to hear. This doesn't scare her as much as it should, mainly because she faced that possibility for a long time.

McCoy is in his mid-thirties and only here at the Academy because he's got nowhere else to go; his daughter, money, practice, and his belongings all taken by his wife in the divorce, and the Academy was the only place that was willing to take a down and out doctor.

One night McCoy and Gaila both, separately, try and talk her into going out on the town with them. Danny's had enough of studying 24/7; she's solitary by nature, yes, but even she needs to get out occasionally. So, she goes with Gaila to some bar (not quite a dive bar, but it certainly isn't as clean as it could be), and McCoy meets up with them later, along with a blond friend of his (Gaila attaches herself to his lips almost immediately, and so Danny winds up chatting with McCoy most of the night).

Danny doesn't make a habit of it, but she actually gets buzzed (she doesn't drink if she can help it normally; alcoholism is on both sides of the family, as is drug addiction, but it's one night out and she's not driving). That's what prompts her to start singing along to the jukebox-not just a jukebox, which is rare enough, but one that is cranking out Johnny Cash, who by now nobody recognizes and someone just picked the song at random.

"I fell into a burnin' ring of fire, went down down down and the flames went higher," she sang out, laughing: her father turned this up so loud it liquefied the air on their road trips, back when he'd been a truck driver and it had been summer. It had only been her parents and her, because Beth hadn't been born yet. They went from coast to coast in the diesel truck, it was fire engine red, and she was so small back then the back seat was like a couch. Johnny Cash, KISS, AC/DC; she heard all of those, and memorized them, because it made her parents laugh.

"Where'd you learn how to sing that?" McCoy asks, and Danny just grins.

"Grew up on it, born and raised. I was the only 4 year old that had the lyrics to 'Sue' memorized, made my cousins laugh their asses off." She chuckles and knocks back another drink.

"Never hear you talk about your family."

"Nothin to tell," she mumbles, her good mood almost completely gone now. "All the ones I know are dead, long time ago," Bones can hear the accent of hers emerging and it makes him raise an eyebrow. Danny had artfully changed the subject any time he'd enquired after her background, and even if she is toeing the line between drunk and buzzed, he's not about to miss this opportunity to learn about her.

"No cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Siblings?"

Danny stays silent before saying, "they died while I was sleeping. Then their kids did. And so did theirs. My closest family now is 4 generations down the line-my baby sister's great-grand daughter. They don't know me, and it'd be too awkward to show up out of nowhere. "Hey, I'm your great-great-great aunt, I've been in cryo for two hundred years, can I stay?" Her laugh is sharp and forced, and McCoy understands, suddenly.

He's noted the way that Danny struggles over what everyone knows; top songs, names, events that have happened in the last decade that weren't technically top news stories. He's familiar with how sometimes she'll get this lost sort of look that makes her look like a child (the part of him that reads those psych papers wonders if he's replacing Joanna with her), the way she'll absently touch the back of her head, as if looking for an injury that should be there.

Danny tells him everything, sitting in the bar, crying and laughing alternately, and Bones listens to her. He genuinely likes Danny, but only as a friend; she's polite, and she can be funny. She does her job well and she's eager to learn, and takes criticisms reasonably well (she certainly doesn't give him heart damage pulling stupid shit, like a certain blond he knows).

What must it be like, to wake up and everything is gone?

Danica weaves a canvas of dreams for Bones with her words; a life before transport beams, PADDs, synthesizers. He's read about the 21st century of course, but Danny knows things in such an intimate way because, unlike the stuffy history books he often fell asleep to, she's actually _lived_ it.

In the end, Bones escorts Danny back to her dorm room and puts her to bed (he takes off her shoes and socks, but he leaves her clothes on); he leaves a glass of water and an aspirin on her bedside table, as well as a note. He leaves early to get ready for Jim's Kobayashi Maru, and prays to god that the little idiot doesn't embarrass himself again.

* * *

Danny wakes up in the morning with a splitting headache and a vow to never drink again. She notices the water on her bedside table immediately, and downs that and the accompanying medicine as soon as she can get her hands steady. She feels absolutely gross; she slept in her clothes (if she'd been naked or in her pajamas, that would have ended any sort of friendship she had with Bones, so it's a bit of a double blade), and her breath is sour while her hair is lank and greasy from both the environment she'd been in the night before and the late time waking up (her Italian genes as well as her Native American ones result in a rather greasy complexion and scalp if she doesn't keep up with it), so she immediately strips and enters her shower when her head stops spinning. Normally, her shower are 20 minutes tops, this one takes the better part of an hour with how vigorously she scrubs, shaves and washes herself.

She finds her note from McCoy when she goes to wash out her glass- it's short, concise and brisk, just like him, but it still makes her smile.

_Don't forget to stay hydrated. Hangovers are hell without any fluid in your system, Danny._

Her classes for the day aren't until later in the afternoon, leaving her with little to do. One glance outside makes her decision for her; a walk wouldn't kill her- and if it pained the hangover, it serves her right for drinking enough to get one.

30 minutes later found Danny seated on a picnic table, sketchbook open in her lap, looking up to memorize the way the light filtered through the gaps of the pine tree. It's only a while later that she realizes why she'd drawn this one specifically. When it dawns on her, she's torn between laughing and crying; and just like that, she lets herself be swept away in the rush of memories; it happens occasionally.

_"Come on Danny!" Nina grins down at her, scampering up onto the next branch without a thought. In contrast, Danny has to be careful, and remind herself not to look down or she'll get dizzy._

_They're 9 and 10 years old respectively, only separated by a few months difference, climbing the towering pine tree in the corner of Nina's yard; it had been Nina's idea to do this. She said only someone without fear could make it to the top, and had immediately darted to the truck to pull herself up. Danny follows, trying to talk her out of it._

_The pliancy of the branches makes Danny nervous, and she looks farther u; her Dad knows about trees, he loves the outdoors, loves the smell of the earth, and making things grow. He's shown her what to look for when she climbs; stability, most of all._

_She sees the discoloration almost immediately._

_"Nina, we can't go up any further, the branches are rotting!"_

_"Don't be such a baby!" Her voice is a life time away, she's so far ahead. A moment later, Danny knows that she's put her weight onto the wrong branch; the splintering, sickening **crack** resounding in the still afternoon. More follow in milliseconds and Nina comes crashing through. _

_There is no thought (in time, this moment will make Danny question her thoughts on religion, centuries later in a future she struggles in), only a moment of icy fear slicing her spine before Danny reacts; Danny reaches out and grasps, her fingers digging into scalp and chestnut hair. Nina begins screaming (later Danny's arm will be so swollen she won't be able to move it) and thrashing, trying to tear away from the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. Danny holds onto Nina as long as she can, and it's just long enough for Nina to get a grip on a branch._

_The two of them are silent as they climb down._

_It's only after their feet are on the ground, and they are facing one another that they burst into tears; actually, it's Nina that begins to wail, wrapping her arms around Danny and crying forcefully and loudly. Danny doesn't move; she can only think and imagine if she had been a split second later. She holds her friend a little tighter, and she thanks God (because she believed in a higher power, back then-believed everything would turn out wonderful, that angels kept people safe and evil didn't exist)_

It's cold when she pulls herself out of the memories, and she realizes that the sun is beginning to go down. Her drawing is finished, only on auto pilot- she hates it when that happens.

One of the psychiatrists that had spoken with her had said that her subconscious was so rattled by the lifestyle change it sought solace in submerging herself in what she knew; in this case the only thing that she could do was remember.

It's nice to know that cities don't really change; even after so long of living in one, Danny can still pretend that she's back home, in a sense, when she walks down them; people really don't change. They walk down the street without really seeing anyone else, and in turn, Danny can blur their faces just enough that everything is like it used to be. Languages, sounds, smells- all of it blurs together as she walks back to the Academy.

What amuses her greatly is that bike messengers still exist; she'd have thought bicycles would be long gone by now, but now. She's glad some things never change. This changes when one almost gets hit by a hovercar- a cabbie. They start yelling at each other on the curbside. One more thing that hasn't changed.

Danny makes herself some tea and settles down on the bed to speak with her family. She lights the incense and bows her head.

"Hi, Nana, Mama, Dad. I had another flashback today. I guess I should just prepare for those anytime now… I saved Nina from that tree. I'd almost forgotten it," she takes a sip, letting the taste settle on her tongue, and then swallows, the warmth spreading pleasantly. "I had a hangover, too- I think I told McCoy about where, I'm from. He didn't do anything, I'm pretty sure- he left me some water and aspirin, and a reminder to keep drinking. Water, that is. I don't think I'll be drinking again any time soon," she laughs uneasily. She gets to the point about what's bothering her soon enough though, "I saw an argument between a cabbie and a bike messenger, on my way home. It bothers me, that centuries later, and with other species involved, we still can't even get along." She laughs darkly and looks at their pictures. "I just wonder sometimes if there's any hope for us. Can I…can you send me a sign, that maybe there's something in the universe still worth going on for? I'm not gonna lie, I think about seeing you guys a lot. Just…I don't ask for much. I need some help. A sign is all. I love you all. Good night."

She opens her window and puts her cup in the sink, then goes to bed.

The next morning, the graduating class is called in for the disciplinary hearing of James Tiberius Kirk.


End file.
